I took my Toyota Prius to meet its grandparents: inside Toyota’s secret car den
December 18, 2025 by Jamie Edkins
Car changing is a big deal
Cameron Kalare has been to visit Toyota’s heritage car collection to film some content with his Prius, and there’s plenty of cool stuff in the garage.
I’ve been living with my Toyota Prius for around six months now, and I’ve come to really like this hybrid. It’s such a radical departure from the previous models with its funky styling, and this bright yellow paint scheme makes my car stand out even more.
Back in November, Toyota invited me down to its press garage to check out its heritage fleet. There are lots of very cool cars hiding in here, including every generation of Prius, so I grabbed my camera and headed down there.
Looking at the latest Prius parked next to the first one really puts things into perspective. The original may look a bit dated by modern standards, but back in 2001 this thing was revolutionary.
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It was one of the first mainstream hybrid cars to really take off, and that interior was like nothing else on the road at the time. Touchscreens were a luxury in even the most high-end cars back then, but here you had one in a family-friendly hybrid saloon.
You can see the spirit of that car carried over to my 2025 model. They don’t look similar, but the new Prius is still styled to be different to anything else on the road. The low-slung front end and swooping roofline make it look way more interesting than the copy-and-paste SUVs you see on the road today.
Having filmed the Prius models, there was so much more in Toyota’s garage to look at. I found another Mk1 Prius which was track-prepped, all three generations of the MR2, a Lexus GS F and, the one which really caught my eye, the Lexus LFA.
I couldn’t turn down the opportunity to film a cold start on one of the best-sounding V10 engines ever made. You can enjoy it in the video below.
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Sadly, I couldn’t take Toyota’s £1 million supercar home with me. However, I was still happy to waft back home in my trusty Prius. It’s a properly comfortable motorway car, and the adaptive cruise control helps to take the strain out of long trips. It’s also averaging around 50mpg, which is decent considering I rarely get the chance to plug it in to make the most of its electric-only range.
Getting back from Toyota’s garage meant navigating some busy urban roads, and this is where the driving aids really shine. The Prius can pretty much drive itself in traffic and around the city thanks to the automatic braking, and putting it in B mode to increase the regenerative braking means you rarely have to touch the brake pedal at all.
It’s not all good in town though, because I’ve found that the Prius can be a bit tricky to judge in tight spaces. The windscreen is quite a long way away from where I’m sitting, and the way the front end drops away means you’re never quite sure where the corners are.
Other than that, I’m still loving life with the Prius. Sadly, it will go back to Toyota soon. I’ll be reporting on five good things and five annoying features before then, so stay tuned.
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